3.5 stars.

I’m still not a huge fan of the Big Bad battle/reveal — though I do like finally learning how everything fits together — and it frustrated me that it takes forever to find out what really happened to Noah. (Not that I ever had any doubts that

Spoiler

he was alive all along, or that Mara would manage to bring him back

.) The plot developments make logical sense, but I still feel detached — maybe because they’re almost completely predictable, even anticlimactic. Still, the epilogue is satisfying, though

Spoiler

the First Time scene

in particular bordered on cheesy.